The genre of the recurring miniseries can't get much better than this. The debut season of TRUE DETECTIVE is everything I hoped for. Situated in the oft-used location of muddy Louisiana, this season investigates a serial murderer case (known as The King in Yellow) deeply and mysteriously intertwined with the church circuit the area prides itself upon while simultaneously examining the ever-changing relationship between the markedly different Detectives Cohle and Hart. Pulpy and dark, it's TWIN PEAKS for this generation. The only difference is TRUE DETECTIVE is more grave and serious and creepy. The ominous never seems to settle and, after the first few episodes, slow and weighed down with detail, the audience adapts to the heaviness of the show just as it picks up the pace. Bullets and sparks begin to fly. You may have to fight past that first disc, but trust me, you should; it's worth the gamble. The world you enter is like a little pocket unto itself, or as Cohle describes it, a ghetto, a memory fading. The vile and the devout meet in Vermilion Parish. Black stars are everywhere in Carcosa. I highly recommend the first season (or is it miniseries?) of TRUE DETECTIVE.

Wow pretty bleak series. The crime was awful, The criminals were awful & the cops solving the crime were awful as well. McConaughey & Harrelson are very good in their awful roles, although maybe Harrelson could have maybe not done the silly thing with his mouth all the time, it was just annoying. So in some ways it was very well done because it disturbed me & I'm left wishing I could unsee it now. To late!!

As many commentators point out, the series is uneven. But McConaughey, who has been on a roll lately, and Harrelson, who is cast as the straight man this time, are consistently superb. My only quibble is that I didn't believe the flashbacks where McConaughey plays a much younger man. TRUE DETECTIVE is not of THE WIRE caliber, nor is it near the quality of MAD MEN. But it is worth watching.

Did not live up to expectations given its extremely high ratings. McConaughey's acting was stellar, and Harrelson's was excellent , too (his character just did not give him as much opportunity to shine). However, though the writing was excellent in the initial drawing of character Rust Cohle and in its noir depiction of southern Louisiana, it ultimately did not deliver, and it proved not to be particularly inventive or original. At first the series really drew me in, but it turned out to be just another male-bonding buddy movie without much depth and little surprise.

Script is overwrought. Soon gets positively tedious. Somewhere in here there is a potentially good three hour movie. But as it goes now it is nothing more than typically Woody Harrelson self-indulgent navel lint picking.

Quotes

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of sh*t. And I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. You gotta get together and tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality?"

"The ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of the tunnel, well, that's what the preacher sells, same as a shrink. See, the preacher, he encourages your capacity for illusion. Then he tells you it's a f**king virtue. Always a buck to be had doing that, and it's such a desperate sense of entitlement, isn't it? 'Surely this is all for me. Me. Me, me, me. I-I-I’m so f**king important.'"

Notices

Frightening or Intense Scenes:The series itself is intense and dark, mostly from the ambiance, without too many scenes of an aggressively frightening nature. The churning suspense may be too intense for some, though.

Sexual Content:Female nudity is shown multiple times (breasts and buttocks, mostly). There is also one scene in which male buttocks is shown. Scenes of a sexual nature are depicted once every two or three episodes.